blue, white & gold argyle wedding quilt

it is hard to believe this moment has come and gone.
i just posted day 1 from my sister's wedding on my photography site yesterday, and now here we are officially blogging the quilt.
which post is more important?  well, i'll leave that up to you to decide.
i'm sure you're all going "wait!  didn't you just make your super duper lucky sister her own giant quilt for christmas?"  yes.  yes i did.  but that was supposed to be for her, and this one is for them.  so now i never ever have to make her another giant quilt.  and it will be 10 years before i have to make her a baby quilt...  or at least 5.  that's my plan for their life anyways.  SO.  back to the process of this quilt.  i had started planning this quilt prior to even finishing the science one, since i had to essentially begin it asap!  my sister was/is an argyle fiend so finding one that wasn't too blah was a challenge.  i found a super cool purpley one that had a stain glass look to it, but there was no pattern to be found.  and at this rate, no emily has time to make a pattern.  not in the midst of sewing one thing and cross stitching another.  lisa found a pattern for me, which oddly enough is by a local designer in town!  i was afraid it wouldn't be big enough, so the designer shelley of cora's quilts told me how to make it large enough for the potentially queen sized bed they'd be having.
we went to idaho in november to do all the mega wedding shopping stuff with the bride and at one point of course ended up in a joann's with aileen (i mean... duh?)  no matter how much i poked and prodded to get a color idea out of her, i couldn't get much of anything as a color sample out of her (at the time, she was looking at stormy blue for us bridesmaids).  we came home, and i immediately hit up our own local joann's and went with a navy blue, gold and ivory color scheme.  and then she went and changed our dress color to dirty purple**.  whatever, aileen.
these blocks went together wonderfully, as well as the quilt as a whole.  i am quite pleased with the final result, because it is very much argyle and very aileen & ben really.  the pattern was great to follow, with my own math calculations being the issue when it came to buying fabric.  anyways, here are the photos!
here's a little closer look to see some of the prints.
 i was afraid i would hate those blue prints touching, and all the floral was a little overwhelming.  i think the solids breaking up the lines really helped make it work.
i also promise i trimmed those stray strings as well!
for the quilting i followed the gold "squares" and went around each side of it and then around the border. i didn't want to quilt over the argyle in the case that it might detract from the actual pattern of the quilt. i started off with navy blue thread, but then quickly (after a fit of rage) switched to off white to better hide in case the "ditches" i stitched in didn't stay too well.
as any good big sister/bridesmaid/photographer would do, i made the two of them open their gift at the family reception on friday night after all the festivities.  doug was there helping me out throughout the day, so he was able to get some of the photos as the opening of the beast happened :)
and there you have it!
now that all my blogging is caught up, i suppose it is time to get back to sewing.
happy wednesday, y'all
**i should clarify, i do like the color of the dress.  i just can't come up with a better way to describe it than the aforementioned "dirty purple"